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America's Highest Earners and Their Taxes Revealed (Pro Publica)


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PROJECTS.PROPUBLICA.ORG

Secret IRS files reveal the top US income-earners and how their tax rates vary more than their incomes. Tech titans, hedge fund managers and heirs dominate the list, while the likes of Taylor Swift and LeBron James didn’t even make the top 400.

 

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Which people and professions rake in the most income year after year? Which are most adept at shielding that money from the taxman? And what does this tell you about America?

 

The top earners, of course, are often fodder for lists — but those are usually based on estimates or even speculation.

 

A trove of IRS data obtained by ProPublica has the definitive answers, revealing the incomes and tax rates of the 400 Americans with the highest incomes from 2013 to 2018. It took an average of $110 million per year in income to crack that list — with plenty of names you would expect and some that may surprise you.

 

We’ll also show how much the 400 paid in federal income taxes. (ProPublica is naming the 15 highest income earners, along with an assortment that represent income patterns that we’ve identified.)

 

 

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WWW.PROPUBLICA.ORG

An unprecedented trove of leaked IRS data shows who reported the most income in America from 2013 to 2018, as well as their tax rates, revealing that the very richest pay lower rates than the merely rich.

 

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Periodically, we get a glimpse into the financial lives of the ultrarich. A pro athlete signs a huge contract, a tech CEO sells a boatload of shares in their company, or a billionaire heir unloads a Manhattan penthouse. Based on these nuggets of information, the media speculates as to how much income the rich might bring in every year. But nobody actually knows.

 

Thanks to an analysis of its unprecedented trove of IRS data, ProPublica is revealing the 15 people who reported the most U.S. income on their taxes from 2013 to 2018, along with data for the rest of the top 400.

 

The analysis also shows how much they paid in federal income taxes — and it demonstrates how the American tax system, which theoretically makes the highest earners pay the highest income tax rates, fails to do so for the people at the very top of the income pyramid. The top 400 earners pay noticeably lower tax rates than the merely rich; and, if you include payroll taxes, a married couple making $200,000 a year could end up paying higher tax rates than a person making $200 million a year. (The full analysis is here; it includes selected names beyond the top 15.)

 

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I was actually surprised at how high some of the effective tax rates were, especially for some of the Walton heirs who AFAIK derive almost all their income at this point from

Walmart dividends.

 

Then you have Bloomberg with that LOL 4.1% rate.

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